No One Rides for Free Ch. 06

On a normal day at the mall, there were two kinds of people who smiled at Nik and Raheem. First were old people and conservative types. To the old-fashioned folks, Nik and Raheem seemed like wholesome young folks. Nik's long skirt and Raheem's buttoned-down affect seemed reassuring to average businessman-types and grandmas.

The key to this undercover appeal is that they never looked like they were in costume. It would have been different if Nik's dress was covered in cherries and had a plunging neckline or if Raheem had parted his hair and brylcreamed it to his scalp. But they conservative and older types didn't feel mocked by Nik and Raheem. They were wrong, but they didn't know they were wrong, so they smiled.

Of course, there weren't many conservative types at the mall during the adults-only hours. There were tons of people with elaborate colourful tattoos, a few in fetish wear, but few who looked like Nik and Raheem. Most people gave them odd glances, as if they were far too tucked-in and buttoned-down to be at the adults-only mall.

But some people could see it immediately; this is the second group who smiled at them, the people who caught on to that indefinable thing that Rahmeem called the "balance beam." True, Nik and Raheem weren't in an elaborate costume, but they also weren't entirely sincere. They were very slightly too put together for them to be entirely believable.

The Hitch stand was a curtained-off portion of the walkway with a folding table in front that served as a desk with a bored-looking clerk behind it. Everything about it made it seem temporary and slightly cheap. The clerk was a short, skinny, dark-haired post-goth type with exciting brightly coloured makeup and a bubbly personality. She seemed to be the type to understand Raheem's balance beam, and she grinned broadly at the two of them when they approached. "Oh wow, you guys are fantastic. Are you both here to sign up, or just one of you?"

"Just me, please." Raheem said.

She handed him an iPad. "Okay, let me get you to fill out this questionnaire. Then we can have you behind the curtain to get assessed."

The goth-pixie clerk turned to Nik while Raheem was filling out the legal waivers. "Are you sure you don't want to sign up? We have some pretty great incentives for anyone who wants a brand new card." She giggled at this.

"What kind of incentives?"

"A pair of guys who are trying to raise their assessments are kneeling right behind this curtain. If you sign up right now, you can get one of them to eat you out." She grinned broadly. "One is my boyfriend David."

Nic raised an eyebrow.

The clerk was nearly bouncing up and down with excitement over this news. "I guarantee you'll like him; he is so good at eating pussy! But promise you'll give him five stars, all right? That way his dollar value on the card will go up."

"How long has David been back there, eating out every girl who signs up?"

"Almost all day this past Thursday, and again most of the day today. I got him in because I work here. Most of the other guys who want to get their assessments up will only get a slot for a few hours at a time."

"And you're not jealous of him eating all that pussy all day?"

The counter clerk giggled again. "I actually think it's super hot. And he's not just eating pussy; he sucks a lot of dick back there as well." She got a conspiratorial look and stage-whispered "If there's no one at the counter, I usually go and watch."

Nik was a bit unsettled by the way the world was changing. In her experience as a dominatrix, someone who wanted to kneel for hours and then beg to eat pussy would normally pay hundreds of dollars for the privilege. Here was a guy getting it for free. If these cards caught on, she wondered if she would be out of business. "A tempting offer, but I still think I'll pass," she said.

Because Nik and Raheem had done the research in advance, Raheem knew what to choose on the electronic questionnaire and was behind the curtain with the assessor within ten minutes.

It was a roomy space, larger than it seemed from the outside. Apparently, sometimes people needed to wait to be seen by the assessor, or so it seemed given the half-dozen folding chairs in two rows. There was also a camera on a tripod, a striking woman with a short all-grey hairstyle holding an iPad, and two well-built naked men on their knees. These two, off to the side, were positioned under a sign taped to the wall that read "Oral only."

The older woman, presumably the assessor, greeted Raheem cheerfully. "Raheem, right? I have your file right here. No need to wait, it's been a pretty slow day."

"My girlfriend is outside," he said. "Can she be here for this? I was thinking I'd add that condition where she needs to be present to make sure no one breaks any of my conditions."

The woman nodded. "I understand. A lot of people are signing up for that condition these days. She would need to have her own card for that, though."

Raheem poked his head out of the curtain. "Nik, looks like you need to get a card after all," he said.

"Oh goody!" The clerk said clapping. "David's the one with the long hair. Don't forget: five stars!"

Within minutes, Nik and Raheem were both behind the curtain, having completed the initial questionnaire.

The assessor handed them both Hitch-branded cards with no embossing. "These are temporary; you'll get the personalized one in the mail within five to ten business days. Just so you know, if you leave before you're assessed, your card is set with the minimum dollar value which is $1 equals I hour, with a 50% chance that you will have to pay with your body."

"Oh wow. That's really bad." Raheem said.

"I'm sure that your dollar value will be better after you're assessed, but everyone starts at 1:1:50." She looked them both over with a calm and evaluating glance. "Why don't I start with Nik. Raheem, you can sit in one of the chairs, or if you want your cock sucked, please go ahead."

"I think I will," Raheem said.

As the assessor positioned Nik before the camera, she maintained her breezy casual tone. "Positive star ratings will improve your value once you start using the card. Please remember which of these two you picked, so that you can rate him when you're done with him."

Raheem looked at the two men on their knees. Both were blindfolded, which was nice, it allowed him to stare at them without feeling like he had to set them at their ease. One, presumably David, was a skinny twenty-something with long brown hair in bun and a scruffy half-beard. The other was much more muscular, and his head and whole body were shaved smooth. He seemed older and had a hint of a sneer in the corner of his mouth.

Raheem decided that the David wasn't what he was looking for. There was something compelling about the more rugged of the two, a sort of action-movie leading-man vibe.

Raheem ran a hand over the man's rough cheek to get his attention.

"Tongue out, please."

The man opened his mouth wide and extended his tongue without moving any other part of his body. Raheem unzipped his pants and gently placed his smooth-shaved balls onto the man's tongue. "Now lick, slowly."

Meanwhile, Nik was having her picture taken by the assessor. "Fully dressed first, please," the grey-haired woman said, which was a surprise. The pictures were taken mug-shot style, one from the front and another each from the left and right profile.

"You'll be wrapped up quite quickly," the assessor said. "My name is Bronwyn, by the way. I hope you don't feel under-served here, it's just that assessing women is much easier than assessing men. Next three shots will be nude, if you don't mind."

As Raheem's dick began to harden from having his balls lightly stimulated, he glanced at the temporary slut card he had just been handed. It looked more or less like a credit card, with the Hitch logo and a microchip on it. The chip was new, he thought. Previous versions had only had a magnetic stripe. The card had the same insipid white-on-white scheme as the Hitch store and the Daryl Pines' office. It really did seem like Pines had walked into an Apple store ten years ago and decided to just copy their entire aesthetic.

By now, Raheem's cock was fully erect. The buff and shaved cocksucker was very obedient, continuing to gently tongue-bathe Raheem's scrotum while his fat cock hardened. His throbbing rod was now squeezed between the cocksucker's face and Raheem's pelvis.

Raheem reflected that most people would have at least started licking up his shaft by now, but this guy was determined to follow instructions.

Interesting. "Now slowly up to the tip," he said gently. "I don't want you to use your hands, and I want you to try to paint every square inch of my dick with your tongue. Understand?"

Instead of nodding, the cocksucker went to work. He was very determined to get that five-star rating.

The strangeness of all of this suddenly occurred to him. He was standing on the cold tile of a shopping mall's pedestrian walkway. He was separated from dozens or hundreds of average shoppers by nothing more than a hastily-erected black curtain. The place still had all of the sounds of a busy mall, and when he looked up, he saw the mall's big glass skylight letting light in from outside. Nik was right, this was a good way to avoid being boring.

Without using his hands, the dick-licker was having trouble getting to all of the sides of Raheem's fat cock. He licked slowly up from the base to the tip easily enough, and then positioned his head to lick the sides of his shaft, but the way Raheem's cock pointed upwards meant that it was difficult to lay a tongue along the top of his dick without using either lips or hands to pull it downwards. Raheem let him struggle.

"That's a good effort," he said mercifully after a while. "Now I want you to see how much of it you can take down your throat. Go nice and slow, but don't stop moving. Mmmm. That's it." The girth of Raheem's cock was easily accommodated by the man's wide mouth. Raheem congratulated himself on the choice. "That's it. Now slowly down deeper. I don't want you to hold it in the back of your throat or try to force anything. Just slowly pull back when you can't get it any deeper. You can try and get deeper on the next try, but don't force anything. As long as you keep your head moving up and down, nice and slowly, that's good."

As this was going on, Bronwyn was making small talk while Nik disrobed. "As I told your lovely young man over there, the initial ratio for new cards is no longer 100:1 with a 10% chance. Instead, there is a 'rock bottom' ratio of 1:1, and a 50% chance. But once someone is assessed, we can set a base rate of what they are worth. Once you've been using the card for a while, star ratings will also move your numbers up or down. Makes sense?"

"I read some of the pamphlets. They're very vague on how the different factors work together to influence value."

"They are. That's because it's a proprietary algorithm. And we are constantly refining it to make it better. So if your boyfriend there feels like he has been under-valued, for example, he should stick with us in any case. The system is trying to learn what people are worth, and so it'll have a lot of ups and downs as it gets dialled in. And he can always go up by earning five-star ratings."

"Why do you say he'll be under-valued?" Nik asked, while confidently undoing her floral blouse and stepping out of the skirt she had carelessly allowed to drop to the floor.

"Well, I will be honest that I have a personal belief here. I think the algorithm is under-rating the demand for good looking men. I know that there will always be more people who want women than men, but I think the numbers are going to have to get closer within the next few months. It's extremely unbalanced at the moment."

Nik was now undoing her bra. She exposed her tits to the climate-controlled air of the mall with only the briefest hesitation. "The other problem you have is that there are lots of men who would grovel and kiss a woman's feet and pay for the privilege. So they're not actually risking anything with the slut card."

"Yes, of course," she said casually. "Our research shows that nearly 40% of the sex work industry is men paying to be dominated. This needle will be the last step; it's a blood test to show that you're properly vaccinated. You've already affirmed on your form that you're on long-acting birth control, but it'll test for that as well." Bronwyn jabbed the needle into Nik's bare arm in a businesslike and practised manner. "But we anticipate that the social changes connected with widespread card use will shift the landscape substantially."

Nik's body, with her tits out and wearing nothing but a pair of high-waisted panties, was stunning. She was tall and thin with narrow hips and a high tight ass. Her tits were prominent, with bright pink nipples that puffed out invitingly. Bronwyn reached for one and stroked a finger across it, observing as it tightened up and became stiff.

"Lovely." She said. "That'll be sufficient. You can get dressed again."

"That's all?"

"I can safely give you a perfect score. Frankly, if I weren't so dedicated to detail, I probably would have done that without even seeing you naked." She held a pad which she was busily tapping away at. "You almost certainly would have been able to get a card under our old system." She sighed with a sort of professional ennui "No, gorgeous women like you are not much of a challenge for me. Your lad, over there, on the other hand... It will take a bit more time to see what he's worth."

Nik turned and looked at Raheem, still getting his cock serviced by the toned man with the shaved head.

"Why don't you pull up a chair so that David can eat your pussy. I assure you that both of the men here are very skilled at muff-diving. I've had plenty of time in between appointments to try them myself."

"I'm not sure I'm in the mood, frankly, Bronwyn. I mean, a kneeling blindfolded little twink like David is a bit of a turn-on..." Nik hesitated, running her eyes over his body. His thin left arm was covered in a full sleeve of tattoos, and he had the thin ropey build that you see both on very fit young guys who don't spend a ton of time at the gym, and on heroin addicts who forget to eat meals for days at a time.

Nic approached David and ran a finger under his chin to get him to tilt his head towards her. "How did they end up here? I guess they weren't trying to buy something, just volunteering to get their ratings up?"

"Right, this isn't like the Hitch flagship store; there's nothing to buy in this stand. We allow some candidates to spend voluntary time here in order to get a better assessment. I gave both of these two pretty low numbers, so they're trying to prove that that're worth more than I initially thought."

Nik put a finger into David's mouth and he sucked on it hungrily. "I guess I'll let him go down on me. Better than just sitting around."

"As with Raheem, they've both got conditions that you can't stick anything in their asses. I labeled them 'oral only' to avoid poor ratings from anyone who wants to get fucked by them. They're very good at oral, but neither one has been able to stay hard reliably while they're here. That's the main reason for the low rating. That said, if David's dick does manage to get a bit stiff, you should feel free to do whatever you want with it."

"Whatever I want?" Nik's devilish professional-dominatrix smile had a kind of twist to it that inspired both lust and terror in equal measure. She wore that smile now, as she slid her panties off and settled down in a folding chair.

"Well, anything that doesn't leave a mark," Bronwyn said with a smile that nearly matched Nik's. She grabbed David's ponytail and used it to direct his head in between Nik's legs.

As David started running his tongue up the inside of Nik's thigh, Bronwyn stood closer to Raheem, running her eyes all over his body. "I don't mean to interrupt, but could you take your shirt off and drop your pants all the way to the floor, please?"

She gazed down at the bald cocksucker and said "Dwayne, we are going to see if I can do this while you keep sucking his cock. If you can, that'll be reflected in your re-assessment."

Dwayne nodded without altering his long slow strokes that brought about half of Raheem's dick into his mouth. Raheem began taking his clothes off, moving carefully so that his dick wasn't dislodged from Dwayne's mouth. Bronwyn walked around Raheem in a slow circle, assessing his body.

"Very nice cock, good amount of ass, a broad set of shoulders... I like the chest hair, too. Right now we are finding that shaved chests are actually decreasing value by about seven percent. Too much chest hair can be a problem as well, but you're right in the perfect middle zone according to our best research."

Meanwhile, David had taken up a position in between Nik's legs and was gently running his tongue up and down the length of her pussy. Each time his tongue hit her clit she inhaled sharply.

"You've got a nice body," Bronwyn said "Raheem is your name? I particularly like your dick. Do you mind interrupting the blowjob just for a second?" Raheem gently put a hand on the man's chin and withdrew his cock. Bronwyn grabbed his hard cock and stroked it a few times and then released it. It stood upwards and bounced as he breathed.

"I saw that the two of you want the 5(f) condition on your cards. That'll mean that one of you has to be present when the other person uses a card." She was running a hand through Raheem's chest hair now. "Does she get jealous?" She asked, jerking her head towards Nik, who was now lying back with her eyes closed.

"No, it's more of a safety concern. We want to be sure there's someone around to monitor everything."

"I also see that you don't want anything in your ass," she said, running a finger between his ass cheeks and tapping his hole as if worried he had misplaced it. "Shame about that. It'll bring the value way down, I'm afraid."

Raheem didn't know what to say. "I understand. I just don't often like bottoming. I'm in the mood for just about everything else, no matter when. But getting ass-fucked isn't something I can do with most people."

"Just about everything? I am tempted to take that as a challenge. Do you want to stick around like these two, see if you can get your assessment up?" She looked at his cock, which was still hard and prominent.

"I would, to be honest, but I don't think I can afford to. I have to go home and study."

"Still hard, hmm? That's a good sign. You'd be surprised how many guys have trouble staying hard, or even getting hard in the first place, when they are the on display like this." She grabbed and stroked his cock again now. "These two couldn't stay hard long enough to fuck me, but if you can, I'll bump you up by a couple points. Sound good?"

Raheem smiled at her hungrily. Bronwyn was older, probably about fifty, but still looked very good. "I'm surprised they could resist," he said, and put an arm around Bronwyn's back.

"Ah ah ah," she said, pushing his arm down. "This is my assessment. I'll tell you how I want it, and we'll see if you can do exactly what I want you to. I don't want your arms around me, I just want your dick. No kissing, no hugging, none of that shit, you understand?"

"You're the boss," he said.

"I certainly am. And the boss is going to bend over and bury her face in your girlfriend's tits while you rail her from behind. Understood? You stay hard until I make myself cum, and you get a favourable assessment."

By now, Nik was in ecstasy, grabbing the back of David's head and grinding her clit into his tongue. She didn't mind at all when Bronwyn came over and leaned over to rest her face on her left breast and began licking and sucking at the nipple. Nik just started moaning louder, which must have been audible in the mall outside.